Something Right
by TsubameTrebleClef
Summary: Levi wasn't your typical kid. That much was obvious. But Kenny never thought a mere child could throw his convictions into uncertainty and conflict. As their lives connect, he finds that there is more to living than trampling on others.


**Hey guys! I've wanted to write an SnK fic for ages, and I had this plan for a Rivetra one all typed up and everything. Then I went and started this on my phone at the airport because it was almost 11pm and I was literally going to fall asleep and miss my flight if I didn't do something quick. :/ I should write the other one soon . . .**

 _ **This contains spoilers for up to Chapter 69 of the manga!**_ **And I don't own SnK!**

* * *

 _ **Something Right**_

Kenny Ackerman was a disreputable, murderous bastard. Everyone who knew him knew that. It was enough to send people running, as though the mere mention of his name equated to the release of some highly toxic chemical into the atmosphere.

Kenny didn't resent them for that. After all, he _had_ been responsible for slitting the throats of dozens of Military Police. _He_ knew he was a bastard. Besides, it wasn't as if he was the type to let something as trivial as public opinion get to him. As far as he was concerned, the world was his playground, and he was perfectly happy to leave it at that. And even if he didn't always get what he wanted, it didn't particularly concern him. His day of glory would come. He didn't have to bother wasting his time with anything else.

Well. Until his sister kicked the bucket and he found out about it before her kid could starve to death. Which would have saved him a load of trouble. Instead – lucky him – he got to take the kid home.

Kenny didn't think much of Levi at first. Admittedly, he was too busy blackmailing people and devising schemes to pay much attention to the scrawny youngster, but he did eventually begin to notice that for a child, Levi was peculiar to say the least. He never spoke if he could help it, but when he did it was always in an oddly intelligent, if brusque manner. He was prone to watching quietly while other children trampled each other in streets running with mud, and never showed excitement in situations where other children would have been jumping and squealing for joy. Had Kenny not personally seen the way his dark eyes sometimes sparked with curiosity when he took the boy around the city, he would have had good reason for concern that some unholy creature had forced its way into a child's skin.

But then one night Kenny came home to find Levi huddled in a corner, a dark bundle his eyes missed several times while scanning the room.

"Oi," he said after finally locating the brat, "what do you think you're doing?"

Levi said nothing.

"Oi," Kenny repeated, squatting with an irritated sigh and trying to peer into Levi's face, which was half-hidden under tangled masses of black hair. Levi silently scooted sideways without looking at him.

Kenny raised an eyebrow. "What, is this the rebellious phase that's apparently every woman's nightmare? I thought that was meant to happen when you were two."

He half-expected Levi to make some sort of smart remark at this point, but none came. He threw his hands up. "Fine! Fine. Just reject me, won't you? Not that I wanted anything to do with you in the first place. Ungrateful brat."

He got up and began to walk away, his mind already on the welcoming prospect of a few bottles of beer to enjoy alone and undisturbed before falling into a warm drunken slumber. But Levi, being Levi, chose this moment to prove that he had not, in fact, lost his ability of speech.

"There was blood," he said.

Kenny paused. "Hm?"

"There was blood," Levi repeated. "Sometimes when she came home there was blood on her clothes. She tried to hide it but I saw."

Kenny squinted at him. God, that idiot Kuchel. It would have been better for everyone if she hadn't been so adamant about having this kid. Look how well that had gone for her. And now he was the one stuck with the damned kid.

He heaved a sigh and crouched down in front of Levi again. "There are bad people here. You know that, don't you? That's why you've got to fight. Get them before they get you. Understand?" He clapped a hand on Levi's shoulder and found to his surprise that the kid was trembling.

He drew back and surveyed Levi more closely. As always, his small face was a white mask that betrayed nothing, but now Kenny could see the effort it cost him to keep it that way. His eyes alone were beyond his control, opened wide and fixed on the floor in a way that suggested paralysing fear rather than thoughtfulness. And Kenny began to understand. To say he was a sympathetic man was a bit of an overstatement. But now he could not help but imagine Levi left alone in a dark, musty room while his poor mother tore herself from his side to let herself be ravished by hungry men, and the apparitions and horrors he must have conjured up in the dead of night, as all children with active imaginations are prone to do. And even in the worst of it he would not have dared to make a sound lest something even more terrifying lay in wait. This was the Underground, after all. He would have forced himself to stay silent, even if it meant jamming his hand into his mouth and curling up under the bed until he was stiff and sore.

Kenny rubbed his neck and tried not to look too annoyed. He could visualise his night of solitary indulgence going right out the window and shattering into a thousand pieces on the pavement. But he sat down beside Levi anyway. "Well, what's up then? Bad dream?"

Levi simply looked at him. Kenny hesitated for a moment, then shrugged and reached over, lifting the boy into his lap. He heard Levi's small gasp of surprise and grinned. The boy raised his head and stared at him, wide-eyed.

It was a strange night. Kenny had never had reason to believe that his existence was anything more than an unwanted burden in the already overcrowded slums, but now here was an orphan child who needed him. Well, perhaps not him specifically, but someone who could take care of him, look out for him and guide him along the path of life. Kenny was many things, but he was not a father. And yet there was no one to fill that role but him. He who had been brushed aside by his grandfather and persecuted for his heritage, whose sister had died before he had really gotten to know her, and who had no one he cared about and no one who cared for him. Who was suddenly a guardian for a child who, like him, had no one.

* * *

As time passed, one thing became very apparent to Kenny: Levi had no concept of 'playtime'. Or at the very least, he had a very warped sense of the word. Kenny supposed he couldn't be blamed for that, but even he knew that normally kids would play with anything they could get their hands on – sticks and stones and bits of trash on the sides of roads – even if no one could afford to buy them proper toys. Whereas Levi – well, there was one thing that could make his eyes light up, and it wasn't a yoyo or a wooden truck.

"Oi, have you considered doing something that doesn't involve playing Cinderella yet?" Kenny grunted for the thirteenth time since the start of the week, as he walked in on Levi studiously scrubbing at an already gleaming windowpane. "Come on, any day now."

Levi glared at him. "Do you want this place to smell like all the horses in the city had explosive diarrhoea at the same time?"

Kenny rolled his eyes and left. At least he didn't have to worry about buying kids' playthings he knew nothing about.

Until he did.

He hadn't counted on involving himself with Levi beyond training him in the fine art of survival in the Underground. He had his own life to live, after all. Subjectivity had to be sacrificed for power. You couldn't form attachments to little kids and expect to take over the world.

But Levi, strange and disagreeable and unflattering as he was, was really starting to get under his skin.

Kenny watched as he learned to throw knives with deadly precision, to leap across buildings, to outwit those much older and stronger than him. Once another boy tried to sneak up behind him, reaching for his pocket. There was a flurry of movement and a cry of pain, and the next moment the thief was slammed on the ground, legs up over his head. Levi picked up a filthy broom lying in the dirt, shoved it in the offender's face and walked off.

Kenny guffawed all the way home and slapped Levi on the back when he could breathe again. "Nice going, runt. I'm about to sculpt you into the most terrifying thug this pathetic excuse of a city has ever seen, just you wait. How does it feel to be my masterpiece-in-the-making?"

It happened so quickly he might have imagined it, but he thought he saw a hurt look flash across Levi's face. "That's all you care about, isn't it?"

Kenny didn't think much of it then. Not that he ever thought much about anything unless he was in one of his occasional philosophical moods. "Sure, what else is there to care about?" he said. "Well, I suppose the only other thing you should pay attention to is whether you're emptying your bowels every day. It sure gets problematic if you don't." He chuckled and went off to get drunk, not bothering to look back at Levi.

It did occur to him much, much later, after more than a couple of beers, that maybe kids did have feelings that could be hurt. Even weird kids like Levi.

The next morning he went out to the local store, all the while wondering if he should have left the kid to starve to death after all. He came back and confronted Levi in the kitchen, where the boy was turning a knife over in his hands, his face set in a scowl.

"Hey," Kenny began, then stopped, frowning. This wasn't right. Why should some stupid whim make him feel this awkward, like a kid trying to appease grown-ups after eating all their cookies? Awkwardness was not something he associated with himself.

Levi was staring at him in a very irritated way.

"Alright, Cinderella." Kenny tossed the parcel he was holding over to him, wanting nothing more than to get out of there and find someone to beat up. Levi caught it, looking bewildered. "About time you needed a new one."

Levi opened it slowly. It was one of the few times Kenny ever saw him smile.

Honestly, kids and toys. He would never understand them. Now Levi was probably going to clean the house until the whole building crumbled into dust.

As he walked away, Levi snapped, "Call me that again and I'll knock your teeth out."

Not doubting that he would, Kenny complied.

* * *

Kenny knew he was going to leave. He had never planned to stay. He was needed above ground, where the king held him in high regard. At least, that was what he told himself. Deep down he knew Uri was on a completely different level from scum like him. While he was floundering about, trapped on all sides by darkness and waist-deep in mud that thickened with the blood of all the people he had killed, Uri watched the workings of the world from high above, where he could see the truth of humanity and history with perfect clarity. Kenny knew he had sunk lower than many who were poorer and weaker than him, and in some part of himself that he didn't like to admit existed, he resented it. In some ways, Kuchel had been better than he could ever wish to be. Yes, she'd had nothing, and physically she'd been tainted and shunned by society. But she had not lost her humanity through all of her ordeals, had not resorted to murder, or anything that allowed her to survive at the expense of others. She had never wavered in her resolve to take care of Levi even if it was the hardest thing she ever did. Even if she couldn't see it through. Kenny never forgot the way she had looked at him when he'd tried to persuade her to kill the baby.

He knew he was worthless, and he hated it. But ever since Levi had been thrust into his life, there had been a spark of hope, a foolish fantasy, that perhaps redemption was conceivable. Levi had given him, however temporarily, a purpose, even if he had not fulfilled it particularly well. One that did not involve selfish schemes aimed at disrupting the duties of the royal bloodline and potentially destroying the world just to rectify his own shortcomings. Was it possible for him to be a better person, at this point? Or had he gone too far down that path of greed and destruction to ever go back?

If he left now, Levi still had a chance to see the world for himself, to learn from others who were not as sadistic and deranged as he was. If he left now, he would leave having instilled in Levi a penchant for violence and inventive toilet jokes, but nothing more. He didn't know what would happen if he continued to exert his influence over the boy. Perhaps nothing would. Perhaps he would find that path of redemption under a tangle of overgrown weeds. But he doubted it. Was it really worth the risk of turning Levi into someone like himself?

He left. He didn't know if he was doing it for his own ambition or for the boy. Perhaps it was both. He knew that by leaving, he was closing off the tiny part of his heart that had opened up to Levi, that he would once again become nothing but a coldblooded killer. Did it matter, in the end? In a world where humans faced extinction every day, though most of them chose to forget and live in oblivion, did anything matter?

* * *

When he saw Levi again, it was many, many years later. The boy had grown up. He was humanity's strongest soldier and Erwin Smith's second-in-command in the Survey Corps. He was not the child Kenny remembered.

All Kenny saw was his dream being fulfilled after so many years of hungering after it. He had soldiers from the Central Military Police, who he could use as he wished. He was so close.

And Levi was the leader of a squad in the Survey Corps that was in his way. He was an enemy, and that was all.

It wasn't difficult to think of him that way. Kenny hardly recognised him, or rather, Levi moved so fast that Kenny never even had a chance to look at him closely. They fought, and the sounds of battle sang in Kenny's ears, and that was all.

Even when he cornered Levi in a bar and the surge of adrenaline and frantic energy had begun to dissipate, he barely felt a twinge of conscience at what he was doing. The voice that spoke from beneath the counter was not a voice he recognised, nor were the things it spoke of familiar to him. He had never heard Levi talk about the value of soldiers' lives, or so strongly condemn the way Kenny killed without thought. This was not the Levi he had known.

* * *

But perhaps Kenny had not really tried to kill Levi. Perhaps, though it be buried somewhere deep inside him, he still had some decency left. He didn't know. He sat slumped against a tree, blood seeping through his clothes. Everything that had happened in the past few days was blurring together. Levi and the flash of his silver blades, Historia clutching a syringe in her hands, Eren with blood pouring from his head, Rod Reiss turning into a titan and everything collapsing, sharp fragments raining down on him. And now it was just himself and the darkness that had always surrounded him. He had been a fool, dreaming up the possibility of rising above it, of bathing in the glorious light of victory. He shut his eyes.

He heard someone say his name. Of course. Levi.

And only then, with death's shadow looming over him, did he finally see how much his nephew resembled his sister. As Levi dropped to his knees and took hold of him by the shoulders, he looked into the face that had once been delicate and childlike and thought of all the moments he had forced himself not to think about. The times when Levi had made him angry, or exasperated, or proud, or when the kid's inappropriate barbs had made him laugh until he choked on his own spit.

Levi was looking at him, his eyes burning with suppressed emotion. That hadn't changed. "Why did you leave me?" he said quietly.

The last thing Kenny did as he felt the blood draining out of him was shove the titan serum he had stolen at Levi. He knew he was a useless piece of trash who deserved nothing, but that was the least he could do. Levi could choose to do what he liked with it, because he was working for humanity's future and not for himself, and because he, like his mother, was a better person than Kenny had ever been. Not that anyone could be completely good. But Levi was someone who cared about his comrades, who dirtied his hands with grim resolve because he had to and had become desensitised to it as a result. Kenny could see all of it plainly in the way Levi was looking at him, with that vulnerable, wide-eyed expression he remembered from years and years ago.

In many ways, Kenny had been a terrible father. But he had tried. Perhaps – some of the time – he had truly had Levi's best interests at heart. Perhaps he was not a complete bastard after all.

As he died, Levi said his name again, a faint, oddly comforting echo in his ears.

A single thought passed through his mind. Perhaps, just perhaps, for once in his futile wreckage of a life, he had done something right.

* * *

 **Aw, Kenny is actually so interesting to write about. Any** _ **Les Mis**_ **enthusiasts out there? Because honestly, I was inspired by the relationship between Valjean and Cosette in the book and the idea that children can teach hardened criminals what it is to love.**

 **Thanks for reading, and hope you enjoyed it! :D**


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